Today, we extend the USEDIRPGM command.

Written by Bruce Vining

In last month's column, "Clearing, Rather than Deleting, an IFS File," we implemented a CLRSTMF command. Today, we will start to incorporate this command into the USEDIRPGM command that we created earlier in the year.

Here's the command IBM should have given you but didn't.

Written by Bruce Vining

In recent articles, starting with "Trying to Get a Handle on Your IFS?," we've seen how to automate the deletion of an IFS stream file when a file has not been used within a user-determined number of days. Rather than deleting a stream file, though, some companies would prefer to clear a stream file—similar to how the Clear Physical File Member (CLRPFM) command can be used to clear a database file member. Unfortunately, if you were to prompt generically for all commands that start with the letters CLR (that is, prompt for CLR*), you would find that there is not a Clear File (CLRF) or Clear Stream File (CLRSTMF) command on your system—or at least not one provided by the i operating system. For this reason, today's article will look at how to implement a CLRSTMF CL command.

More functionality extends the USEDIRPGM command.

Written by Bruce Vining

In last month's article, "Isn't Recursion Great?," we saw how a CL command can recursively invoke itself in order to provide nested processing—in the case of USEDIRPGM, nested processing of imbedded IFS directories. Today, we will expand on last month's program with more-specific handling of the stream files (*STMF) and directories (*DIR) that are processed by the DIR3 program, which is the command processing program (CPP) for the USEDIRPGM command.

Find out how to easily check the contents of IFS subdirectories.

Written by Bruce Vining

In last month's article, "What IFS Files Have Not Been Used For Three or More Days?," we saw how a CL program can easily determine how many days it's been since a file has been used. We also looked briefly at how we could automate the removal of files that have not been accessed within a user-determined number of days. Today, we will expand on last month's program with more specific handling of the stream files (*STMF) and directories (*DIR) that are processed by the DIR3 program.

Access and manipulate various forms of time to automatically remove files from the IFS or save them.

Written by Bruce Vining

In last month's article, "When Was an IFS File Last Used or Changed?", we saw how a CL program could determine the date and time an IFS file was last opened or modified. Today, we'll take that one step further: finding out which files have not been opened in the last X number of days, where X is a user-specified value. This is the type of information that may help you decide what files are ready to be archived and/or deleted on your system. An example of how to automate the removal of such files is provided at the end of this article.

Use the stat API to get important IFS information.

Written by Bruce Vining

In last month's article, "Trying to Get a Handle on Your IFS?," we saw how a CL program can determine what files are in an IFS directory. Today, we'll take that one step further: finding out when the files were last opened and when they were last changed. This is the type of information that may help you decide what files are ready to be archived and/or deleted on your system.

Let's review the last few releases and see if you know what CL can offer.

Written by Bruce Vining

While Control Language (CL) has been around for over 30 years, my impression is that the last six years have seen more enhancements to CL than all of the preceding years combined. In fact, I'm surprised CL wasn't renamed to CL II at some point in the last six years! This article reviews many of the program-development-oriented CL enhancements that have become available to you in recent releases. While many new and enhanced CL commands in every release are related to running or configuring the system, this article focuses on the commands that target application development—that is, the commands that are used only within a CL program.

Still manually managing the IFS? Let's start looking at how to automate it instead.

Written by Bruce Vining

Many companies, as they exchange information with other businesses, use communication methods such as FTP to send and receive various files. These files, often stored in the IFS of the i, then need to be managed (for example, periodically deleted) when the processing associated with them has completed. This type of file management unfortunately is done manually in all too many cases. This article is the first in a series looking at how you might automate some, if not all, of this management responsibility.